SA20 suits’ wait to exhale ends

“What did you think?” - the breathless question from tournament organisers.

Telford Vice / Boland Park

YOU could hear it at Newlands on Tuesday, Kingsmead on Wednesday, St George’s Park on Thursday, and at Boland Park on Friday. It was the sound not only of generators keeping the lights on amid the debris of South Africa’s broken infrastructure, but of the end of the SA20’s wait to exhale.

“What did you think,” tournament organisers asked all who came within earshot at Newlands after the opening match. They seemed anxious for the answer, as if anticipating a list of what they could have done better. The list was short: all good. Most of it, at least.

A sellout crowd had seen a match featuring Jos Buttler, Jason Roy, David Miller, Eoin Morgan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Dewald Brevis, Sam Curran, Rashid Khan and Jofra Archer. They had watched Buttler clip 51 off 42, Brevis hammer an unbeaten 70 off 41, and Archer — on his return from 17 months out with injuries — bowl with proper fire to take 3/27.

If there was something to quibble about it was the one-sidedness of the fixture. Mumbai Indians Cape Town hardly raised a sweat heavy enough to permeate their familiar blue shirts in beating Paarl Royals by eight wickets with 27 balls to spare. Not that the organisers could plan for that.

Besides, the matter was put right in Durban the next day, where Joburg Super Kings recovered from 27/4 to 190/6, not least because Donovan Ferreira launched an undefeated 82 off 40. Quinton de Kock’s 52-ball 78 wasn’t good enough to get Durban’s Super Kings home: JSK won an eminently watchable game by 16 runs.

Up, up and away in the stands at the southern end of the ground, Steven Bloy, a health, risk and safety manager in the sugar industry and the brother of Centurion curator Bryan Bloy, stood up as if to stretch his legs, stuck up a meaty left paw, and caught a six Ferreira hoisted down the ground off Senuran Muthusamy. Should no-one else do the same during the tournament, Bloy will keep all of the R1-million — USD57,700 — prize offered for crowd catches.

Some might have thought they were about to wake up and smell the diesel of disaster when two of the ground’s floodlight pylons went dark between innings. But that was a temporary blip caused by the need to top up the fuel in the generators between innings, and the lights, cameras and action resumed on cue.

The usually unflappable Shaun Pollock was flapped enough to confuse overs and wickets on commentary: “It’s 28 for two after nought.” He corrected himself, but the original chimed with the fun suddenly infused into South African cricket. The biggest crowd Kingsmead has seen in decades went home happy despite the home side ending up on the wrong side of the result.

Lightning interrupted play in Gqeberha on Thursday, a rarity for matches in the Eastern Cape. But that couldn’t stop Phil Salt from clubbing an unbeaten 77 off 47 to open and close Pretoria Capitals’ innings of 193/6. Salt and Wayne Parnell, who hit all but three runs of his nine-ball 29 not out in fours and sixes, shared an unbroken 36 off 13. Sunrisers Eastern Cape were marooned 23 runs short, not least because Anrich Nortjé was in rasping form for his 2/18.

The weather couldn’t have been more different in Paarl on Friday. Temperatures hit 30 degrees Celsius before noon, and the prize for the earliest arrivals at the ground ahead of the 1.30pm start was a precious spot in the shade under the trees on the grass banks. That and, thanks to those generators, a respite from the blackout scheduled to rob Paarl of power from 10am to 2.30pm.

Royals responded from their drubbing on Tuesday by rattling through JSK for 81 and knocking off their target inside 11 overs. Bjorn Fortuin and Evan Jones shared six wickets, and Lungi Ngidi, playing his first match since returning from the Test series in Australia, had his best outing in months. Ngidi claimed 1/13 with only six scoring shots coming off his bowling, half of them in his last over. His rip roaring celebration after Faf du Plessis’ top edge flew to deep third was a thing of raw and powerful beauty. Maybe it helps not having to play in a South Africa shirt.

The result represented a stunning reversal for both teams, and while the match was even more one-sided than the opening encounter it did restore the balance of unpredictability that is the format’s major selling point — which the tournament needs to retain the early attention it has earned. And, as the only franchise from smalltown South Africa, Royals staying competitive won’t hurt the narrative.

But it’s not all good. CSA’s transformation targets don’t apply in the tournament, and it shows. Only 20 of the 88 playing opportunities in the first four games went to South African black and brown players. All 32 of the places reserved for foreigners were indeed filled by them. That means almost two thirds of the South Africans have been white.

The pitches for the first four matches weren’t what T20 tournament organisers like to see — too slow, too tacky, and thus not conducive to an untrammelled flow of runs. Many relish conditions that tilt a skewed equation back towards the bowlers, but the suits tend to want to see sixes sailing into the sunset, not struggles to score and slews of wickets.

Even so, the people who want to know what everyone thinks of their tournament should know that many of us reckon it’s a winner. That’s the point of reciting the potted highlights: high quality players have delivered entertaining, not always tight, sometimes explosive cricket. You could say that about any decently run T20 league anywhere in the world. But in South Africa, where multiple challenges cast a pall of depression over the nation, that is success.

Friday’s game in Paarl was the only one of the first four that was not sold out before match day, which is hardly surprising considering it began at lunchtime on a working day. But Boland Park’s time will come; only one of the ground’s remaining three games starts at 1.30pm on a weekday, and two others are on consecutive days of the same weekend. With a capacity of 10,000 the ground is the smallest being used in the tournament, but no crowd in the country rocks and rolls like Paarl’s.

For now, the SA20’s best crowd — in atmospheric terms — has been at Kingsmead, which deserves better times after years of poor attendances and rotten luck with the weather. That might change, in good ways, when the tournament moves to the Highveld this weekend. Few grounds anywhere are as blessed with character, and characters, as the Wanderers and Centurion.

Relax, SA20 suits: the lights have stayed on, the players are performing, and the public is interested. Better yet, you’re giving cricketminded South Africans reasons to be cheerful about the game, which hasn’t been the case for far too long. You’re doing a fine job. Feel free to exhale.

Cricbuzz